This invention relates to a system for electrically firing a plurality of weapons such as rockets carried by a rocket launcher on a military helicopter or other military vehicle, and including interrogation means for determining the availability of rockets ready to be fired.
Rocket firing systems of the type described include an electrically operable igniter associated with each rocket. The igniter is in the form of an electrical filament or resistance element which is heated by the passage of a firing current through the igniter. The heat is sufficient to fire means which ignites the propulsion charge of the rocket. The igniters are connected to a firing circuit which includes a firing lead connected to one side of the igniters with the other side thereof connected to ground. The firing lead of each rocket is connected by suitable circuitry to firing control means, whereby a firing signal is applied to each firing lead under the control of an operator.
It is advantageous to include interrogation means in the system for providing information relating to the availability of rockets ready to be fired, and to feed this information to a computer for mission programming and display purposes.
Prior art systems of the type described, such as particularly described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,103,585, issued to Nelson D. Foley on Aug. 1, 1978, and assigned to BEI Electronics, Inc., Little Rock, Arkansas, feature a plurality of rocket firing circuits connected to respective igniters of a plurality of rockets. A plurality of switching devices are connected to respective firing circuits and a plurality of signal circuits are connected between a signal source and respective switching devices. Each signal circuit includes indicating means for indicating the presence or absence of a signal current between a signal source and a corresponding igniter.
The present invention is an improvement over the prior art device in that it features a single firing circuit, a single signal circuit and a single indicating means to provide a more accurate, more reliable and more economical system. Further, the device of the present invention functions so that only one rocket can be fired at a time and it is not subject to actuation by spurious electromagnetic interferences as may be the case with prior art systems.